The Dance
by Manake
Summary: "I'm never gonna dance again, these guilty feet have got no rhythm. Though it's easy to pretend, I know you're not a fool. I should've known better than to cheat a friend, and waste the chance that I'd been given. So I'm never gonna dance again the way I danced with you." **Edit: This is an extension of a part in my story "Memories."**
1. Invitation

****New Story! :D and, as suggested by the summary, I kept thinking of the song "Careless Whisper" as I wrote it. Sorry if details in some parts are either lacking or overwhelming. ^^ And at any rate, enjoy!****

**(I do not own DRRR!)  
**

Celty walks in the door of the apartment holding the mail, or what little there was. One envelope catches her eye- it's addressed to Shizuo, and has no return address in the left corner. Celty walk up to her boyfriend and says, "This came for you."

Shizuo opens the envelope, slightly confused. He reads the card and letter enclosed and smirks. "It's from Kasuka," he says. "He's got a job for me."

Celty's eyes light up. "Really? Wow, that's great! What's the job?"

Shizuo chuckles. "Ironically, bartending. It's for his movie premiere party this Saturday. This note says that the guy they had hired canceled last minute. Man, I haven't done this kind of job in a long time."

Celty cocks her head to the side. "Wait, so you were actually a bartender before?"

Shizuo nods. "Yeah. Thought I told ya that?"

Celty shrugs. "Maybe, I don't remember. So, are you gonna take the job?"

After pondering for a moment, Shizuo shrugs and says, "Yeah, why not? Nothin' wrong with a little extra cash. I just need to call Kasuka and let him know. Oh, hey!" He looks at the card again. "It says here I can bring a guest. So...wanna go?"

Celty excitedly hugs him and throws her arms around his neck. "I'd love to go! But, oh my gosh, I have to go buy a dress!" She looks at the time, it being 9:04 and says, "I guess I'll have to do that tomorrow. For now, I'm going to bed." She yawns and starts moving toward the bedroom.

Shizuo waves his hand at her. "You go ahead, I'll be right in."

Celty just nods and before she goes to bed, she says to Shizuo, "I know you'll be busy, but at the party...save just one dance for me, alright?"

Shizuo nods and chuckles a little nervously. "Sure thing, babe." When Celty disappears into the room, Shizuo quickly dials his brother's number and waits for him to pick up. After a few rings, a monotone, "Hello?" resounds from the other end. Shizuo begins to pace back and forth in the living room, his hand in his pocket. "Hey, Kasuka. I got your invitation thing today, and I'm definitely interested in the job."

There is a pause, then Kasuka replies, "That's good, I'm glad. But I know you called for something else, otherwise you wouldn't have actually called." After all these years, Kasuka still knew his older brother all too well.

Shizuo sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Dammit," he mumbles, "you got me. The thing is...I need dance lessons. And before you say _anything, _I'm _only_ doing it for Celty. So whattaya say?"

Another pause, then Kasuka chuckles, which he rarely did, and says, "Meet me at my studio at 10 tomorrow morning, and don't be late." The line disconnects, and Shizuo sighs with relief. He puts his phone back into his pocket and goes to join Celty in the bedroom.


	2. Dance Lessons

****(I do not own DRRR!)****

The next day, Shizuo goes to meet Kasuka for his lesson. He still is nervous about it, since he pretty much has two left feet when it comes to dancing, but he wants to make Celty happy, so he's willing to do whatever it takes. He takes the elevator to the correct floor, then is greeted by his brother at the door. "Hey bro," he says. "Who's this?" he asks, noticing a blonde woman standing next to Kasuka.

Kasuka gestures to the woman and introduces her to Shizuo. "This is Yumi, my instructor. She has agreed to help teach you, since it would be best to learn with a female partner."

Shizuo nods slightly. "Makes sense, I guess. Nice to meet you, Miss Yumi," he says with his hand outstretched.

Yumi smiles and takes his hand, shaking it. "Likewise, Shizuo. Yuuhei has told me a lot about you." Shizuo remembered that people in showbiz know Kasuka by his alias, Hanejima Yuuhei, so he has to be careful what he says to which people. After a moment, Yumi puts her hands on her hips and asks, "So, shall we get started?"

Shizuo shrugs. "I'm ready when you are." Yumi takes his hand and leads him into the room.

Meanwhile, Celty goes to Ikebukuro's shopping district to look for a dress to wear to the party. After seven different stores, she is about ready to quit for the day. Then, in the window of a little designer shop, she sees the perfect dress. It's black velvet with little cherry blossom patterns all over it, thin satin straps, and a slit up the left side. _'It's perfect,'_ Celty thinks to herself. So, after a very satisfying consultation with one of the employees, she buys the dress and heads home.

After a few hours with Kasuka and Yumi, Shizuo is exhausted and slightly frustrated, but he feels like he is getting the hang of dancing. Before she leaves, Yumi turns to Shizuo and says, "That was very good. Tomorrow, we will start learning a bit more technique, then put together a quick and easy dance you can do with Celty for Saturday night. Now to make it even more special, I want you to bring in a CD with a song you would like to dance with her to, and we'll go from there. Meet me here same time tomorrow, okay?"

Shizuo gives her a somewhat weak thumbs-up, and she leaves the room. He then turns his head to his brother and says, still panting, "Damn, Kasuka...how do you keep up?"

Kasuka just shrugs. "You get used to it after a while. I must say, Shizuo, you did very well for your first try. I'm glad you're not getting too frustrated with it."

Shizuo stands up. "If it's to make my girl happy, it's worth it. By the way, Kasuka, would you mind keeping this a secret from her? I want this to be a surprise."

Kasuka nods. "No problem. I'll see you tomorrow, Shizuo," he says as he walks out the door.

Shizuo simply nods and watches his brother leave. He stands looking at himself in the mirror for a minute, fixing his bow tie, then leaves to head home, shutting off the lights behind him. In the elevator, he sighs and thinks to himself, _'I should probably go home and practice. I sure hope this makes Celty happy.'_

When Celty gets home that night, she hears a thud from inside, followed by a "Dammit!" from Shizuo. She opens the door to see him lying on the floor, rubbing his head. She asks him, "Uh, are you okay?"

Shizuo is startled by her voice, but he shakes his head and stands up. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just slipped, that's all."

Celty just lets it go, kisses his head, and goes into the bedroom.

Shizuo stands up and lets out a sigh of relief. "That was close. Damn, without music, I've got no rhythm. Hey..." His last statement made him think of the song "Careless Whisper" sung by the American band Seether. He remembered hearing the song once and liking it, but never would he have thought he'd want to dance to it. In his excitement, he dashes over to Celty's computer and looks up the song, grabs a blank disc, then downloads and burns it onto the CD. He smirks as he holds it in his hands, anxious for the next day.


	3. Party

****(I do not own DRRR!)****

Saturday arrives and the couple are getting ready to depart. Shizuo puts on his usual bartending suit and sunglasses, taking the least amount of time to get ready out of the two of them. As he waits for Celty to come out of the bedroom, he rereads his trusty bartending notebook full of drink recipes he's collected over the years. He has pretty much all of the drinks in the book committed to memory, but he wanted a refresher just in case he forgot one or two recipes. After he goes through all of the pages, Shizuo slips the little book into his pocket and begins to quickly go over the dance steps in the living room. Just like the recipes, he has the dance he was taught down pat, but he wants everything to be perfect when he finally gets to dance with the love of his life at the party.

Suddenly, he hears the sound of the door opening and closing, followed by the clicking of high heels echoing down the short hallway. Celty appears before him with a smile on her face, and he nearly loses it. Her makeup is perfectly coated on her face; her hair shiny and pulled back slightly; her jewelry sparkles in the light; her dress...he can't even describe how that dress looks on her. That beautiful black velvet dress hugged all of her curves in all the right places, and the part in the side showed off just enough of her leg to add a flare of sexiness without it being overwhelming. Shizuo walks up to her and continues to look her over. Celty smiles and turns around slowly, giving him a full view of the dress, and as she does so, asks, "How do I look? Is it too much?"

Shizuo chuckles and shakes his head, taking a hold of her hips as she turns back around to face him. He kisses her forehead lightly and replies, "You look too amazing for words to describe. The only thing I could do without is the makeup. You look much better without it." He smirks and holds his arm out to her. Celty simply rolls her eyes at him and takes a hold of his arm, then the two walk out the door and down the stairs.

Shizuo and Celty depart for the party, not in a limo, but on Shooter. Celty constructs a riding suit over her dress, being careful not to wrinkle it, and for once makes a helmet around her own head so she doesn't smudge her makeup or mess up her hair. For the time being, she gives Shizuo her yellow helmet to wear, laughing right out loud when he first puts it on.

When they arrive at the venue, and after Celty parks Shooter in a safe place, they meet Kasuka at the entrance. After heading inside, Kasuka shows Shizuo where he is to report and Shizuo and Celty move in that direction, while Kasuka goes to mingle with the other celebrities. Shizuo gets behind the bar and starts to get a feel for the space, memorizing where everything is, and starts to flip through his little notebook full of drink recipes. While Shizuo is getting settled, Celty looks around the room in awe, anticipating the official start to the night. She is excited to be at a fancy party like this, and hopes that if she meets any famous people she recognizes, besides Kasuka of course, she doesn't get carried away with excitement.

The night carries on, and Celty gets up to dance with some of the guests, including Kasuka. Shizuo watches on in mild jealousy, but he knew he would get his turn soon. Celty makes sure to check in every now and again, not only to take a break, but to make sure Shizuo wasn't left all alone. She even gets to sample some of the drinks Shizuo made, which she admitted were absolutely delicious.

At the very end of the night, Shizuo closes the bar and walks up to Celty, his hand outstretched. "I told you I'd save a dance for ya," he says.

Celty smiles and takes his hand, and lets him lead her to the dance floor. Frankly, she's surprised- he's never shown an interest in dancing before, it seemed like it would frustrate him to no end. But to her surprise, when the song started, Shizuo started dancing like he had done it his whole life. Celty simply followed his lead, as they twirled and strode all around the dance floor in perfect rhythm and harmony. All the while, Celty was in pure awe that Shizuo surprised her like this. In fact, on this night, Celty could proudly say she had fallen in love with him all over again.

As the song draws to a close, immense applause erupts from all around the two, although they didn't really hear it. They were too absorbed in each other to really notice anything until the room started to clear out. When Shizuo goes to collect his check, Kasuka approaches Celty and says, "That was wonderful. It really is plain to see how in love my brother is with you." He smiles.

Celty "blushes" and replies, "I'm glad you approve. Tell me something, where did Shizuo learn to dance like that? He's really good."

Kasuka hesitates for a moment, then finally says, "I was supposed to keep this a secret but...Shizuo's been taking lessons from me and my personal instructor this past week. I must say I'm impressed with how far he got without giving up."

Celty is completely awestruck. "He took lessons just for me? Why would he do that?"

"Because I wanted to make tonight special for you," Shizuo responds from behind her. "Kasuka, I thought I asked you to keep this a secret?"

Kasuka just shrugs. "She wanted to know, and she deserved to."

Shizuo shakes his head and sighs. "Whatever, man. Still, I can't thank you enough. Yumi really did wonders on a rhythm-less sucker like me." He chuckles as he wraps an arm around Celty's shoulders.

Kasuka smiles sightly and nods. "It was my pleasure, so long as Celty had a good time tonight."

Celty nods and bows to Kasuka. "I really did, thank you for inviting me."

Kasuka bows back and replies, "I'll let you two get going now, it's getting kind of late. Have a safe ride home. Shizuo, I'll see you around."

Shizuo and his brother shake hands and Shizuo and Celty depart, waving goodbye to Kasuka as they walk away.

Celty and Shizuo arrive back at the apartment at around 12:15, and both of them are tired yet not sleepy. Celty quickly washes her makeup off in the bathroom, then goes to join Shizuo in their room where he is already undressing. Celty goes over to the dresser and starts taking off her jewelry and lets her hair down. "Wow, celebrities sure can throw a party, huh?"

Shizuo shrugs as he unbuttons his vest, then his shirt. "I guess. I was mixin' drinks all night so I never payed much attention."

Celty rolls her eyes and takes off her shoes. "Let me ask you something: what made you choose that song we danced to?"

Shizuo removes his vest and shirt and hangs them up in the closet, then replies, "I dunno. 'Cuz it talks about dancing?" When he sees that she is not convinced, he wraps his arms around her and continues, "And the words kinda spoke to me for some reason. I'm not sure why, since I'm pretty sure the song is about losing someone, but they still do."

Celty smiles and looks into his eyes. "It made me think about the days when we were still just friends. All of the missed chances to say things we needed to, the inability to be together, things we did with each other that couldn't be done with other people. Then it made me think about how lucky I am now to have you. And of course, the way you moved and how you held me through the whole dance...it made me fall in love with you all over again."

Shizuo smiles and kisses Celty softly, holding her close to him as he does so. "I love you, baby girl," he whispers to her.

Celty smiles back and replies, "I love you, too." She then turns around and asks Shizuo, "Would you unzip me, please?"

Shizuo nods. "Sure." He pulls on the zipper of her dress and gently slips the straps off her shoulders, letting the velvet garment fall to the floor. He kisses her shoulder, then her neck, running his hands over her bare skin. Celty takes a breath and closes her eyes, feeling Shizuo's warmth all around her. Shizuo smiles against her skin and asks, "How opposed would you be to some more dancing, this time a little more...horizontal?"

Celty chuckles and turns around to look at him. "I think that would be wonderful."


End file.
